Stern: There will be no summit of Wade, free-agent friends

During his annual State of the League summit before Thursday's opening game of the NBA Finals in Los Angeles, NBA Commissioner David Stern addressed "The Summit."

Or, to be more precise, the much-talked about, apparently never-to-be-held summit of leading free agents in advance of the July 1 start of the league's offseason negotiating period.

A week after agent Henry Thomas, who represents Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade and Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh, a leading pair of free agents, told the Sun Sentinel there would be no such summit, Stern reiterated that position.

"There is no free-agent summit," Stern said at Staples Center, shortly before the Los Angeles Lakers faced the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the best-of-seven championship series.

While Wade has spoken of strategizing with other leading free agents, the notion of a full-fledged convention of leading free agents has spun out of control.

"I was wondering whether they would get together, eight players, and they'll all look at D Wade's ring?" Stern said. "They'd be better off watching these Finals to see how you construct a team and how you play and the like. There's not going to be a summit."

In addition to representing Wade and Bosh, Thomas belongs to the agency that represents James.

To a degree, the talk of a "summit" has become a matter of semantics. However, the possibility was broached at a time when Stern has fined Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $100,000 and Hawks owner Michael Gearon $25,000 for comments related to specific impending free agents.

"Our players talk to each other all the time," Stern said. "They talk to each other on Team USA. They talk to each other. I think they have a meeting every year around our draft. I've been assured at the highest level that there is no summit."

Stern said the level of such discussion might be monitored if it becomes public.

"I would expect our players to talk to one another, and we don't have any problem with that," he said. "If some kind of tampering is implicated, I will have a later and different view, but we're not expecting that."

Stern said the league had to get proactive with teams because players don't become free agents until July 1 and cannot be signed by other teams until July 8. James and Wade, in fact, each technically have an additional season on their current contracts, with an escape clause to opt into free agency by June 30.

"Our teams who have these players under contract are easily offended, and appropriately offended, when inappropriate statements are made about players already under contract," Stern said.

For his part, Heat President Pat Riley has not commented publicly on any basketball matter since a playoff wrap-up session May 3 at AmericanAirlines Arena.

Stern said he has no issue with teams preparing for the onset of free agency. But he insists that none get a running start on the process.

"They have until July 1st to do that," he said. "Talk is cheap. What you've got to do is on July 1st: Do you have the cap room? Do you have the pitch ready? Do you want to bring it in? Let's all play by a set of rules."

Stern said he could appreciate players who already have been eliminated from the playoffs getting anxious.

"It's up to the players to decide where they want to go," he said. "They fought very hard for that right, and I'm perfectly fine with that."